Horatio's Bridge
by Chya
Summary: No summary. Jayne-centric vignette.


Warnings: Deathfic - if you don't like, don't read.  
  
Notes: I wrote this after seeing Jaynestown and doesn't fit in canon timeline as set so far. Thanks to JillyW for the beta - all remaining mistakes are mine.  
  
*****  
  
Horatio's Bridge  
  
by Chya  
  
Like Horatio defending the bridge to the long dead Rome of Earth-that-was, so Jayne stood as tall and determined before the oncoming horde, Vera solid in his grip, a fanatic gleam in his eye.  
  
Oakwood wasn't anything like Rome of course, just a dirty little backwater mud-hole that thought itself grander than it really was, a concept that Simon found highly amusing, from the women in their garish makeup who thought themselves so-fist-o-cated and elly-gant to the tumbled down bar that boasted waiter service from its splintered sign. But it was big enough to house several hundred people that now chased Serenity's crew, intent on tearing them to pieces.  
  
For the farce that Oakwood appeared on the surface housed a deadly secret, one that Kaylee and Mal had stumbled upon quite by accident. A secret that held them beaten and captive for days while the rest of the crew searched for them and while the town council tried to coerce Kaylee into helping them. She did in the end of course, unable to bear the torment they rained upon her Captain.  
  
It didn't matter what the machines were for, didn't matter what Oakwood planned, what was important was the fact that they got Kaylee and Mal out of that hole. That while Jayne carried the semi-conscious Mal like a sack of spuds, Simon and Inara helped the wounded but walking Kaylee between them as Zoë guarded their rear.  
  
But they weren't going fast enough, crowds catching up with them, taking pot shots with their guns. Jayne was big strong and fast, but Mal was no lightweight and Kaylee, as determined as she was, couldn't help but keep stumbling. And then Serenity's shape loomed over a hillock on the other side of the river, sat waiting, her engines rumbling as Wash prepared to reward their speedy return with an equally speedy exit.  
  
They weren't going to be fast enough. Even with Book and River coming down the path to help them, a fact that had Simon squeaking in indignation as he tried to tell River to go back while she ignored him completely with weird mutterings.  
  
They crossed the bridge that spanned the river, Zoë making noises about collapsing the structure and Jayne wishing he'd brought Helga instead of Vera. Helga wasn't easy to carry round being as she was near enough big as he was, but she'd have torn that bridge down like it was nothing.  
  
Jayne squinted at Serenity as it dawned on him that if those people caught up, then Serenity wasn't going nowhere, and if Serenity didn't fly then he had no bunk and no pay. The answer was so obvious that he was surprised that Zoë hadn't thought of it. He glanced sideways at her, meeting her speculative gaze. Or maybe she had.  
  
"Keep going, Jayne," she told him, "I've got you covered."  
  
Except she hadn't, he flinched as bullets pinged off the metal girders. She had a good weapon, was a true marksman, but it was slow loading, single shot. She needed something like Vera.  
  
At the end of the bridge, Jayne dropped Mal behind a boulder and unslung Vera from his back.  
  
"Jayne!" Zoë snapped at him. "Get the Captain on board, now!"  
  
Jayne shook his head. He wasn't giving Vera up, and he knew he could take some damage, much more than Zoë with his bigger frame. "You take him." He indicated the others hobbling too slowly with his chin. "You're in charge. I got me a bridge to defend."  
  
Jayne wasn't exactly sure why he felt the urge to get all heroic, because no matter how he looked at it, he couldn't justify it to himself. There wasn't anything he was likely to get out of it, other than a few bullets and lot of pain, if he even survived. But the look Zoë gave him then, a look of what. maybe thanks, maybe respect, sorrow, all of that and more.  
  
The boulder was the only shelter, and while he could take some out from there, it wasn't enough to slow the mob down. Waking Vera up with a flick, a click and a Chinese curse, he rolled to his feet and, with all the fierce menace and intimidation he could muster, strode back over the bridge, Vera spraying all comers with bullets, indiscriminately felling people who yelled and shot at him, stopping the horde in its tracks.  
  
Buying time for his crewmates to get themselves aboard Serenity.  
  
The Oakwood mob cowering before him gave Jayne a sense of power, and he could almost hear Simon blubbering his thanks and hero-worship. And that's what he wanted. Not Simon blubbering, but to be seen as a hero. A real one, not the fraud that the mudders on Canton worshipped, but a real honest to goodness hero. That's what he was getting out of this, and to be that hero, to have people he might have called friends through to those he despised see that he could be a hero, to know he was that hero for just a few moments was worth all the riches he'd ever imagined and more.  
  
He held onto that thought as the mob regrouped and realised that he was just one man albeit with a very big gun, as the first bullet took him in the shoulder, then the second, and the third. Held onto that thought when eventually his legs gave way, his body too riddled to hold itself up anymore and he pitched forward, feet running past and over him. Held onto that thought as he heard Serenity's engines rev and scream their farewell to the frustrated wails of the mob. Held on to that thought as the bloody hand of death dragged him down into hell.  
  
At the top of the ramp, Zoë held off closing it until the first of the mob set foot on the bottom. Shooting those that scrambled to stay on the rising metal she hit the close lever and yelled at Wash to fly. As Serenity rose, through the shrinking hole of the ramp way, she saw the bridge, saw the bodies lying there, saw Vera lying next to one body just a little bit bigger than all the rest. Alone in the cargo hold she came to attention, giving him the best military salute she knew how, not only for herself but because she knew that Mal would have done the same.  
  
FINIS 


End file.
